The pack was in mourning. For reasons I would never understand, they had all loved Mason as Alpha. And now, two days after losing him, they had heard the news that fifteen of the pack fighters had gone into the woods to kill rogues and not come back.

The bodies were brought back in batches. I'd been on the scene in the immediate aftermath with Seth to give first-aid, along with every other medic in the entire pack. We might as well have stayed home. There had been no one to help. By the time we'd arrived on scene, the last man had bled out into the dirt.

And not a rogue body in sight.

Micah was ... incensed. Livid. Infuriated. His mood was not improved by the news that once he had ordered every fighter in the entire pack to the north border, my mother had taken her entire force southwards and launched a very successful raid against the outlying houses there.

So the new Alpha was in hot water with his fighters. And although none of them dared say a word against him, he could feel their eyes on him, heavy with judgement and reproach, and it only made him angrier. I watched him punch a tree, a medic and a van in quick succession.

Micah was not Mason. And a pack that had been nigh on impenetrable to us last week was now under such incompetent leadership that my mother could kill fifteen fighters and make off with thousands of pounds worth of goods without losing a single rogue. Even if Liam and I died tomorrow, our work here had not been in vain.

I arrived back at the cottage late in the afternoon with blood on my hands and sweat coating my body. Seth had made us check every single one of the dead men, even the ones who were missing their throats, to be sure that they really were dead. Like most of the medics, he was in denial. Silver Lake hadn't seen a tragedy like this since ... well ... ever.

"Is it true?" Lilah asked, the second I came through the door. She sounded horrified, and her voice was barely more than a whisper.

"Yeah, it's true," I sighed. "Big bloody massacre. Guts everywhere. Bodies strewn over so much woodland that the scouts had to sniff them out. Damn rogues, am I right?"

Lilah stared at me, the blood draining from her face, utterly aghast. It occurred me, much too late, that I could have found a slightly more sensitive way to break the news. And great - one glance into the living room, and I could see that all the boathouse girls were similarly shocked.

I was going to have to find a way to sound less excited about my packmates getting murdered.

"It's ... um, it's tragic," I murmured, trying to frown. "So ... tragic."

That was good enough for Lilah, who gave me one last funny look and then turned around to take her jacket from its peg and pull it on. It was at that point when I noticed that she was dressed like she was about to leave the house. She'd even touched up her make-up.

"Hang on," I said. "What're you doing?"

She ran a hand through her hair, her eyes wide and pleading all of a sudden. I was reminded of someone who had been caught with their hand in the biscuit tin. "Going to the pack house. I was hoping- I mean, I was wondering if you'd take me."

Well, at least she'd been sensible enough to wait for me to get back. If she'd gone for a walk through the woods alone, she'd be dead by now. Even with the crisis at the border, Micah's sanctioned creeps were still sat in the bushes outside, thinking they were oh-so-sneaky.

"Yes," I said slowly, "I'll take you. But only when Alex gets back."

Half because I was a coward and didn't want to be responsible for getting her killed. And half because I didn't want to leave the other girls without protection.

But Lilah shook her head vehemently. "No, we need to go now. Lin said she didn't want to mate with that fighter, and it sounds like he took it personally."

"Ah, shit," I mumbled. With everything going on, I had forgotten about Lin. They had been trying to replace Will with some older guy, hadn't they? And I'd promised I would help, and even if I hadn't made that promise, I couldn't just sit here, could I? "Alright. Let's go get her. I guess there's room for one more in this house."

There was not, in fact, room for one more. The girls from the boathouse were packed into two bedrooms. Charlie was sleeping in the study, Liam was on the sofa, and I was on Lilah's floor. But we'd find space. Somehow.

I made a quick trip to the kitchen, stopping just long enough to slip a jagged knife into my pocket, and then I trudged back towards the door.

"Want some back-up?" Andrea asked from behind me. I turned my head to see that she was leaning against the doorway, all casual like, but every muscle in her body was taunt and knotted. She didn't seem to be holding a grudge against Lilah for her harsh words that morning, but I reckoned that said more about Andrea's nature than Lilah's behaviour. The other girls were crowded behind her.

"Sure," I sighed. "Why not? Girls' trip."

When I turned back around, I saw Charlie's mother zipping up her coat with a determined gleam in her eye. I hadn't even realised that she'd been listening, but ... it looked like she was not going to be dissuaded. And I wasn't going to try. It seemed that we might have accidentally created a little splinter pack when we'd gathered everyone in this cottage. They all spilled out onto the driveway.

Charlie's parents had taken to leaving a baseball bat beside the door while Micah's men were camped outside the cottage. They were flockies, and flockies didn't like knives, so they settled for blunt force trauma. I picked it up as I passed and marvelled at the feel of the smooth, varnished wood against my palm.

"What's that for?" Lilah asked me, eyebrows raised.

I gave it an experimental whack against my hand and found that I liked the balance. "We'll see."

***

Lin had barricaded herself, quite sensibly, into the commissary storage room, where she had no end of heavy boxes to pile against the doors. Unfortunately, that hadn't deterred her attackers. It was the twenty-something-year-old guy who had been selected as a replacement for Will and one of his pals. Both of them were fighters. And both of them were trying their best to kick down the door.

I sidled up alongside them and leant against the wall of the corridor. It was very easy to be brave with a baseball bat in my hands, a knife in my pocket, and seven very determined-looking women standing behind me.

"Hey, lads," I said. "What are we doing?"

The nearest guy spared me the barest of glances, with a curled lip and a derisive look in his eye, and then he went right back to kicking the door. It was splintering before my eyes. Two panels were lying on the carpet, surrounded by fragments of wood, and another was hanging off.

"We're minding our own business," he said. "You should try it sometime."

And just to illustrate his point, he took a threatening step towards me, suddenly too close for comfort. I prodded him with the end of the baseball bat - pushing it hard against his chest. He grabbed at it and yanked, trying to take it off me. And it was then that I sent the butt end swinging towards his face. It made contact with a horrible thunking noise. He groaned and reeled away, clutching his jaw and spitting curses.

His friend stepped in front of him, eyeing the bat with narrowed eyes. He wasn't in such a hurry to make contact, but he did spread his hands wide in a placating gesture. "Look, darling. Lin's confused at the moment. The grief is making her a little ... loopy. You know? I'm just trying to make sure she gets to the sanctuary on time. The priestess is going to give us special dispensation to mate."

He was saying it earnestly ... like he genuinely expected me to understand. Like wanting to sleep with a sixteen-year-old was a valid reason to drag her kicking and screaming to her wedding. A flockie might have walked away then. Found someone higher up the pecking order to sort this out. It was lucky that I wasn't a flockie.

"Okay," I said mildly. "Here's the thing. No."

He choked on a laugh. "The hell do you mean - no? This has nothing to do with you-"

Oh, I had no trouble believing that he didn't know what 'no' meant. I plastered on a sickly smile and raised the baseball bat once again. It was less suspicious than pulling a knife on him.

"I mean that you can go screw yourself," I said. "You have three seconds to get away from the door before I clock you. Three."

"Don't make me laugh, little girl."

"Two."

"You wouldn't dare-"

I didn't say 'one.' I didn't want to give him the warning. I just swung hard at his stomach and knocked the breath right out of him. And while he was doubled over, gasping, I took the cheap shot at his throat with my other hand. My knuckles collided with his windpipe.

They made it so easy, these flockie boys. They took one look at me and saw a scrawny-looking girl and dismissed me as a threat. And that made it all the more surprising for them when I turned around and kicked their arses. Sometimes it was nice to be underestimated.

I shook out my hand. The flockie was on the floor now, distinctly pale and retching. I hadn't hit him that hard, but he didn't try to get back up again. Lucky for me. My knuckles were stinging, and I wouldn't have been keen to hit him again.

"Eva..." Lilah breathed.

She didn't sound as scandalised as I'd expected, but there was a degree of wariness there. I turned my head just far enough to wink at her before stepping away from the door. Without taking my eyes off the flockies, I called to Lin. "You can come out now."

And she did. Slowly, cautiously, and with a faceful of disbelief, Lin crept out of the storage room and ducked behind me. I had a feeling I didn't want to know why her dress was torn at the shoulder and there were red marks on her arms, like someone had been squeezing a bit too hard.

He'd laid hands on her before she'd got away. He'd tried to drag her to that ceremony against her will. This pack never ceased to amaze me. He should have been on our list for the ambush. You'd think that a man who had the hots for a sixteen-year-old would have qualified as one of the pack's biggest pricks, but somehow, he didn't even make the top fifteen.

"Let's go, ladies," I said.

I dared to turn my back on them. One hand on Lin's arm, I guided her down the corridor, towards freedom. She didn't look too much the worse for her ordeal. And once we got her back to the cottage, she'd be safe and sound.

"The Alpha will hear about this, you vicious little bitch," the man's friend snapped after us.

I was certain that I had never cared less about anything ever. "Cool. Don't leave out the part where I beat you both up."

***

We were coming out of the packhouse when Micah found us. I wouldn't have been surprised to see him looking at us, given that Lilah was among us, but that wasn't all he did. The way he changed direction, stalking across the lawn, could only mean one thing. Someone had been mind-linking.

We were in so much trouble. For more reasons than one. He had a group of fighters behind him, and one of those fighters was Liam. He had been drafted to Mason's personal detail days ago, and that meant he was now a part of Micah's. And his presence here only served to complicate things.

I had a horrible feeling that the combination of Micah threatening us and Liam's wolf being wide awake was going to be a deadly one.

I nudged my link with Nia. "Hey. Um. How soon do you think you can get here?"

Her answer was slow in the coming. I felt her assessing the colour of my thoughts, trying to get a feel for what might have prompted that question, before she said, "Depends how fast I run, Eva."

I looked between the two brothers. My mouth felt dry, all of a sudden. "Fast. Please."

It would be safe for her today. Well, as safe as it could be. After the fighters had died, Micah had pulled back all his men from the border. He hadn't wanted to give the rogues any more easy, isolated targets. She heard those thoughts running through my mind, and I felt her considering it carefully.

"I'll take the car," Nia said, after what felt like a lifetime. "Ten minutes. Tops."

Ten minutes was a long time to stall. But it was manageable. I tried to convince myself of that as Micah came to a halt right in our path. Arms folded, he regarded our little group with a nasty look in his eye and a smirk growing on his lips.

"That's far enough, ladies."

We had been so close. Another minute, and we could have been in the shelter of the trees. A little too late, I dropped the baseball bat behind me and tried to look innocent. It might have been more effective had Lin's attackers not come out of the pack house behind us to watch the show.

"You have an appointment to keep, Lin," Micah told her, one eyebrow cocked. "The priestesses are waiting for you."

Her face blanched, but she didn't dare argue with him. She just shrank back, almost trying to hide behind the other girls as Micah padded closer, trying to intimidate her into obeying. I took the tiniest of steps so that I was blocking his path, because we'd come too far to turn back now.

Micah's lip curled. "If you get in my way, sweetheart, I will put you in handcuffs. These gentlemen say you assaulted them, and we don't take too kindly to that here."

Oh, okay. So if two lads started a fistfight in this pack, it was encouraged, it was just 'sorting the hierarchy' and the Alpha would happily watch. If I hit someone with a baseball bat because they were being an arse, it was 'assault.' Interesting.

I didn't step back. Because who cared if he tried to arrest me at this point? Liam wasn't going to let him. So I stayed exactly where I was, because it wasn't like Micah was physically trying to push past me anyway.

"You will go with him," he told Lin, "and you will say your vows at the sanctuary, and you will do it with a smile on your face. Do I make myself clear?"

Lin looked at the man she was supposed to mate with. She looked around herself, no doubt noticing that none of us had moved. Seven woman around her who were willing to stand up to the Alpha. And although we had not always seen eye to eye, although she was only sixteen years old, she was a brave girl.

"Yeah, that's clear enough," she said quietly. "And now let me make myself clear. I'm not going to do that."

And before Micah could so much as blink at her, she lowered herself to the ground and sat down. Her legs were crossed, her jaw was set, and her hands were shaking. But she just sat there, and she looked up at Micah, making it very clear that if he wanted her to go anywhere, he was going to have to drag her.

We had quite an audience by then. We were blocking the main doors to the pack house, and there was one crowd in the corridor behind us and another gathering on the lawn. Plenty of the flockies were pissed at Micah about the dead fighters, but none of them dared to show it, so they just stood there and stared at the lot of us, curious and quiet. Micah glanced at them all and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable with all the attention this was attracting.

"Get up, for Goddess sake," he snapped. This time, the full force of his wolf was behind the words. Lin winced as she tried to fight it, but the next second, Lilah was sitting down beside her with darkened eyes as her own wolf soaked up all that dominance and threw it back in his face. You couldn't spend seven years as a Luna without learning a trick or two.

The other girls sat down around them, so tightly packed together that Micah would have to step on them if he wanted to reach Lin. Typical of the flockies to protest in the most passive way they could imagine, but ... it seemed to be working. Micah was scowling at them, and I could practically see his mind grinding along, trying to come up with a solution. He wasn't used to defiance in any shape or form.

And behind him, I could see that Liam's eyes were on me. He slid them very deliberately towards Micah and then raised his eyebrows a fraction, asking the question.

Now?

It wasn't what we'd planned, but I didn't see this ending happily if we didn't do it now. I gave him a slow nod. Packs weren't too fussy on the transition of power, apparently. You needed witnesses - of which we had plenty - and it had to be a fair fight. That was all.

Meanwhile, Micah was fast losing patience with us, and he had a new strategy. "If you don't move, I will have you all arrested."

You'd think that might have been enough to budge them. But the flockie girls stayed exactly where they were. And before Micah could carry out the threat, Liam was pushing his way through the knot of fighters to reach him.

"Goddess' sake, Micah," he said. "Leave them alone."

The Alpha whirled to face this new threat, a growl rumbling in his chest. Mutiny from all directions. It was more than his little flockie brain could cope with.

"Sounds like you want to join them in the cells, fresher," Micah said roughly. "Who the hell do you think you are?"

There were only so many warnings he could give. Every time we ignored one, he lost a little more authority. There were dozens of flockies watching by then, and the mind-link was buzzing like an overturned beehive, which only served to draw more of them in. Sooner or later, he'd have to hit someone, and he knew it. And it would look a lot better for him if he punched an insolent fighter and not a defenceless girl.

Liam was only too happy to help him reach that conclusion. He gave him a wolfish grin. "You really don't recognise me, do you?"

Calm. And enjoying himself. He'd been waiting long enough for this. That night he'd learned about the boathouse, I'd noticed something change in him. There had been a coldness, all of a sudden. A willingness to kill. Micah wasn't complicated in the way Mason had been.

I watched his forehead furrow now. The way he was looking at Liam, I could tell he was confused. Maybe even a little worried. He must have known he was missing something, but he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.

"No. I don't," he said, giving Liam a shove backwards to no effect. "So shut up or I swear to the Goddess I'll knock your teeth out."

Liam's grin stretched wider still. "Go on then."

There it was. One final taunt, designed specifically to make Micah snap. He didn't try shoving a second time, since the first attempt hadn't even pushed Liam back a step. He just swung.

It would never cease to amaze me - how quickly two people could go from a standstill to pummelling each other into the dirt. Fistfights like that were fast and messy and brutal. Micah landed a series of solid punches in the first few seconds, mostly to Liam's head and shoulders, but none of them were particularly well-aimed.

All the while, Liam was giving as good as he was getting. Being a rogue was no small advantage. We were a lot rougher than flockies, and if Liam could have used his knife, the fight would have been over in seconds.

The problem was that none of his punches could possibly have as much force behind them as Micah's did, given that his brother had at least twenty kilos on him ... and most of that was muscle. He had to be twice as quick to counter it.

My heart was in my throat. Because Nia wasn't here yet, and there was a chance I was about to watch him die. Micah was older, and Micah was bigger, and Micah had the pack cheering him on.

The other fighters had crept backwards to give them space. None of them looked particularly interested in the fight. Some were smirking, some were muttering amongst themselves, and the rest looked bored. They weren't worried. Or they didn't care. They'd lost fifteen colleagues to Micah's incompetence today.

But me? I wasn't breathing. And I was having to fight every fibre of my being to just stand there. Micah knocked Liam to the ground and tried to pin him down, throwing punch after punch at his ribcage while the close-quarters made it so easy.

Liam lodged a knee in his brother's gut, buying himself a second's reprieve. He used it to try and get up, because while they were on the ground, speed was useless and Micah could throw his weight around. But Micah caught the back of his shirt before he could manage it.

Down they went again, in a tussle of limbs and swearing. The sound of knuckles hitting flesh was a constant, jarring chorus. It was so hard to tell what was happening that I stopped trying in favour of watching a car pull onto the side of the road. It was a battered, mud-splattered old thing that I recognised from around camp.

That had better be Nia.

Because somehow, in all the chaos, Micah had got an arm around Liam's throat. That would have been dangerous enough if he'd been trying to choke him. But instead, Micah was fighting to find himself enough leverage to twist. He was trying to break Liam's neck, and the whole world seemed to stop for me.

He couldn't die here. Not after everything we'd endured to get to this point. If I lost him to Micah, of all people, I was going to become real unhinged real fast.

I shouldn't have worried. Liam threw an elbow back into Micah's face with bone-breaking force and then followed it up with a punch to the chin as his brother reeled away. Liam was coughing, but that was all. Nothing dislocated, nothing broken.

He picked himself up and stood there, his chest heaving. He stared down at his brother, who looked more than a little dazed after that last blow. He didn't press the advantage, even though it would have been well within his rights. He knew - they both knew - that this fight had outgrown punching

Even as I watched, Micah shook off the dizziness. He growled deep in his chest and clambered slowly to his feet, looking at Liam with a new level of hatred burning in his eyes.

"Shift," he snapped.

So now they would fight to the death. Micah could not allow anything less, not when Liam had challenged him in front of half the pack and embarrassed him so thoroughly. He wanted to make an example out of him.

Their first wrestling match had been far from decisive, but there was no doubt that Liam had come off worse. Even as I watched, he spat blood and then wiped more from his face with his sleeve. His nose was bleeding heavily, his lip was split, and his breathing was rough and uneven.

But it was just a beating, and Goddess knew he'd taken enough of those over the years. Cuts and bruises wouldn't kill him. He came over to stand beside me without once taking his eyes off Micah.

He stripped down to his shirt in readiness for the shift. His coat and jacket were draped over my arms. Across the grass, Micah stood there fuming. He was willing to wait for the time being, but I had a feeling it wouldn't last long.

"Nia's gonna help you," I said under my breath. "So keep those walls up, yeah?"

Liam cast a surreptitious glance towards the car and the figure which was now beside it. He didn't look happy about that, but I hadn't expected him to be. I didn't care if it hurt his pride, so long as it kept him alive. And then his eyes were back on me, as heavy and intense as they always were.

"You're worried," he said.

And that didn't take a genius to figure out. It was written all over my face, burnt into every taut muscle and oozing across the link in sickening quantities. But I nodded all the same - a rigid little gesture that probably gave away just how worried I was.

Liam pressed his forehead against mine, trying to reassure me. His voice was hoarse but steady. "Don't be. I'm not. He's slow and he's stupid. This won't take long."

I stared at him unhappily. Mud was splattered across his jeans. His hair was tousled from an earlier shift. And he smelt like sweat. I reckoned it had more to do with the exertion of the afternoon than nerves, because his heartbeat was slow and steady in his chest. I never could figure him out. In torment when things were quiet and calm when he had no right to be.

And despite everything that was happening, despite Micah waiting for him, he paused beside me for a moment longer. One hand came to my chin, tilting it upwards, and then he pressed his lips against mine.

I'd kissed him enough times to know that he was usually gentle about it. But not today. It was rough. Demanding. Enough to take my breath away and then some. And when he finally pulled away again, a tiny smile on his lips, my stomach seemed to be doing backflips.

If he had been trying to distract me, then ... well, shit. It had worked. I might have believed that he was just protecting our cover, but ... there had been nothing business-like about that kiss. Not when he'd been making eyes at me. It stirred feelings which I had been trying very hard to bury.

Before I could decide if I was annoyed or aroused or just plain confused, Liam had turned away from me. Probably because Micah wasn't going to wait forever. And I was left there holding his clothes for him and getting more stressed by the second.

Now that he was facing his brother, Liam pulled his shirt over his head and used it to wipe the rest of the blood and muck from his face. It was a very deliberate, very calculated move on his part. Because Micah froze where he stood, his eyes still and his lips slightly parted. The uncertainty made him look younger, somehow.

It wasn't the sun-kissed golden skin and corded muscle which had caught his attention - as beautiful a sight as that was. No, Micah was looking at the burn scars which stretched across his ribcage. They were circles of silvery, half-melted flesh. Hard to miss. I knew Micah had a dozen of his own.

Time seemed to pass slowly. It might have been ten seconds or a minute that Micah stood and stared. It was possible to pinpoint the exact second when he worked it out. The realisation hardened every muscle in his face and steeled his eyes.

"Hello, little brother," he said.